Rocky Top partners plan 3D Interactive Theater, Coal Car Laser Tag

Wednesday

Nov 6, 2013 at 5:53 PM

A 3D attraction at which cartoon characters would interact in real-time with children would be the first attraction built by the Rocky Top company looking at locating in Lake City, according to one of the company’s partners.

Donna Smith/The Oak Ridger

A 3D attraction at which cartoon characters would interact in real-time with children would be the first attraction built by the Rocky Top company looking at locating in Lake City, according to one of the company’s partners.

Brad “Papa C” Coriell outlined plans Rocky Top Tennessee Marketing and Manufacturing have for Lake City, a name which developers want changed to Rocky Top. He told of those plans before a standing-room-only, informational meeting Friday night at Main Street Baptist Church in Lake City.

“This is family entertainment,” he said. “Think Disney if you want.”

If the name is changed from Lake City to Rocky Top through a resolution by the Lake City Council and then approval by the state Legislature, the first attraction could be constructed within 18 months, Coriell said.

The first attraction would be the Knotty Pine 3D Interactive Theater. He described a theater at which young children go inside and sit down in a room with large video screens. Cartoon characters that are designed especially for the theme park would interact with the children in real-time, he said. He said the only place in the South that has an attraction similar to this is Disney World.

Next door, he said, would be the Coal Car Laser Tag. People would ride two-seat coal car type rides and shoot laser guns at targets in the darkened building.

A Coal Miners Theater would be another attraction, Coriell said. A water park is another attraction. He described parts of the water attraction being enclosed in glass, making it a year-around attraction and there being glass prisms that would make rainbows.

A three-story family restaurant that has a riverboat theme is another attraction planned, Coriell said. A Bear Lodge and Banquet Hall that would have a wine cellar so people could purchase dinner wine is also in the plans, he said.

Coriell said no alcohol would be served at the water park.

The former Disney artist said the seven partners in the company are having civil engineers look at the Lake City athletic field to look at ways to make the area flood-proof. Plans for an enclosed sports arena on 30 acres that don’t flood for Lake City are also part of the plans, he said.

Coriell said no firm plans have yet been made as to where in Lake City the attractions would be located. A T-shirt shop and candy store are also planned, he said. Several people were handed Mason jars containing candy corn — the first candy produced by the company. It included one of the cartoon mascots for the theme park-type attractions — Strudel, a roller-skating, spectacle-and-scarf wearing duck.

Plans for a $120 million theme park are planned well into the future, Coriell said.